Monday, June 18, 2018

High Flying College Visit from UConn to Foxwoods to Upton Bass

We had the fantastic opportunity to visit Foxwoods and try out their HighFlyer Zipline. Since this required taking the kids out of school, I was determined to make the most of the day. Dova was away for her 8th grade Washington DC trip so it was going to be a mother and son day for Adam and me. Although Adam is a junior in high school, he has no idea where he wants to go to college and what he would major in, so in tiger mom fashion, I created a list of suitable colleges that met our criteria of having a good engineering AND music programs within 200 miles (one of Adam's criteria). The University of Connecticut in Storrs was on the college list, so that was our first stop. Besides, two college visit days are allowed at his high school as an "excused absence". I just looked up the policy, and you "must provide proof of visit signed by college representative". Oops, next time!

Adam was not in the mood for pictures, but he was definitely in the mood for a day off from school, as seen by his choice of t-shirt, "Save Ferris". This strange multi-layered entranceway was to the Chemistry building.

Aha! I captured Adam in a selfie! Some of the grounds and dorms at UConn were really beautiful. We passed the somewhat dated United Technologies Engineering Building and I reminisced about my short employment at Sikorsky Aircraft 28(!!) years ago, long before United Technologies sold it to Lockheed Martin in 2015.

After our self-guided tour of UConn, we headed down to Foxwoods Casino and Resort. What a difference in venue from the rural collegiate campus. I asked Adam how his college visit day was going and he replied, "I'd like to go to college here [at Foxwoods]".

On this rainy day, the zip line wasn't open just yet, so we looked into the restaurant options. Adam had previously been to Foxwoods and ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. I scanned the multitude of restaurants and saw that Junior's Restaurant had pastrami sandwiches. As soon as I uttered the wordpastrami, Adam could think of nothing else. I reminisced how my father used to work at Long Island University in Brooklyn directly across the street from the original Junior's Restaurant on Flatbush Avenue. He used to bring home their world famous cheesecake all the time. This meant nothing to Adam, he was only interested in pastrami.

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Did I mention that Adam had pastrami? Piles of tender, juicy, salty pastrami? I had a wonderful plate of lox and bagels, another New York delicatessen specialty. We could also view the zip line from the restaurant and saw some high flyers come down as we finished lunch.

It was finally time for our high flying flight. We've all been ziplining before in the Berkshire mountains, but never off the roof of a 350-foot tall building! After watching the safety video, we arrived at the top of Fox Tower.

Although ziplining sounds physically challenging, this ride is not at all. It really only requires stepping into the harness andclimbing about two flights of stairs to get to the roof. Everything else, including all the safety straps, is done for you.

We headed down the line at the same time, but Adam beat me down due to his higher weight.

For the landing, we were taught to brace by leaning back and extending our legs. Adam actually hit the stop block on the landing.

I was laughing here because I stopped way before the stop block and I wasn't bracing for anything at all. They pulled me in by grabbing my feet.

It was a fantastic flight! No, my hair didn't get grayer because of the flight, it was the wind, really!

To make the most of this college visit day, we then headed to nearby Upton Bass to look at instruments for Adam. We stayed for nearly two hours trying at least a dozen basses. He even brought his own bow, but we didn't end up picking one.

We finally made it home by around 9pm. It isn't often that I get to spend that much quality time with Adam, he's a very busy young man. We had quite the jam-packed adventuresome "college visit" day!

Thanks to Foxwoods for providing lunch and tickets to the HighFlyer Zipline. Use code "hfbloggin" for a $10 discount on your HighFlyer Zipline tickets! Watch this video for more info.